


The Way It Used to Be

by Winchester_with_Wings



Category: DCU, The Flash (TV 2014), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/F, F/M, Flashpoint - Freeform, Post-Flashpoint (DCU), Reader-Insert, Reader-Interactive, angsty, bisexual!reader, request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 01:52:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13307904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winchester_with_Wings/pseuds/Winchester_with_Wings
Summary: Anon message from May: I was re-watching the flash and this idea popped into my head where Barry comes back from flashpoint and everything about his and readers relationship is different like they aren’t together anymore and reader has a girlfriend of her own and Barry is freaking out and shit.





	The Way It Used to Be

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not copy or repost my work without my permission. Thanks!

He can’t stand it. He never noticed it until he came back from Flashpoint.

Of course he’d seen you in relationships before. He’d seen how happy your boyfriend or girlfriend would make you and he’d seen how heartbroken you were when it ended, but he’d never really considered being jealous and wanting to be the boyfriend making you happy.

But then Flashpoint ended. As it should have. There were so many reasons for why Flashpoint couldn’t last but that didn’t mean it was easy leaving it. He’d had to leave behind his mom. He left behind his father. He left behind you.

You’d hugged him when he’d come back. Your friendship seemed to have endured the change in timelines as opposed to his friendship with Cisco. But really nothing was the same. You weren’t the same.

You used the same shampoo…in Flashpoint. Barry remembers running his fingers through your hair, lathering the soap into your hair. He remembers waking up to the scent of your honey lip balm that you wore to bed every night…in Flashpoint. But that hoodie…it’s not the hoodie you wore all the time in Flashpoint  _and_  in the proper timeline.

He’s never seen you wear that hoodie before. He gets his answer to its origin minutes later when a beautiful woman walks into your embrace. You kiss her on the cheek and hold her hand.

An introduction follows.

Your fiancé?!

Barry is dumbstruck and he plays it off as happiness and surprise. But really his heart has landed squarely in the pit of his stomach.

Barry thought he hid his disappointment and jealousy well over the next couple of weeks.

The end of Flashpoint must’ve given you lie detection powers.

“You’ve been acting strange ever since Flashpoint…I mean…I get it…but you’ve seemed extra weird around me…why?”

“I can’t do it anymore,” Barry admits.

“Do what?”

“This…” he gestures between the two of you.

“Us? What do you mean?”

“I can’t watch you with her anymore…” Barry throws his hands up in the air and then runs his them through his hair. He’s on the verge of a breakdown, his brow furrowed and his face twisted in pain.

“Wha—what? I don’t understand…”

“No! And you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t understand. How can I expect you to understand? You don’t remember it because it never happened to you. It wasn’t you. It was…” Barry sighs, slumping down in a chair. “It was flashpoint…and you’re happy with her. I can’t ruin that for you.”

You get on your knees in front of Barry, all the questions you’ve had and strange glances suddenly make sense. What had Barry experienced between the two of you in Flashpoint?

It’s as you lean in to kiss him that all those memories of Flashpoint…of a life you never lived but a life that feels so real…of moments where you and Barry had discussed marriage…not you and your girlfriend.

It all felt so real.

And maybe it was. Or maybe it should be.


End file.
